


Breathing Space

by dayari (derryday)



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Abuse, Assassin's Creed III, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4552353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryday/pseuds/dayari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the altercation with his father, Desmond catches a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing Space

**Author's Note:**

> Content note: references to past abuse, though nothing graphic.

Sand and gravel slipped out from underneath his running feet, splattering over stone slabs. 

He took a long, flying stride. His thighs stung and burned, but he leaped up three of the broad stone steps at once, throwing his weight forward, into the steepening slope.

Though humiliated anger roiled in his gut, it was like he'd never stepped out of the Animus. His muscles responded with well-practiced fluidity. Desmond took a run-up and hurled his body over an outcropping of rock. 

There were scrambling footsteps behind him. He could hear his name being called breathlessly, but it sounded far away, muffled by the dull roar of blood in his ears.

His jaw hurt. It wasn't too bad, just a scratch compared to some of the things he'd felt second-hand through his ancestors—to some of the things he had experienced _himself_. Still, there was a sharp, thickening throb, blood drawing to the surface for a bruise that would stay for days.

"Desmond!" Rebecca shouted after him. Her voice echoed oddly in the long tunnel. "Desmond, wait! Hey—"

A clatter of gravel interrupted her. Desmond glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see Rebecca lose her balance.

Her eyes went wide and startled, arms flailing madly for a second before she toppled and fell. She tumbled down the steep, rock-littered slope and landed in a tangled heap of limbs on the wider stone steps.

_"Fuck,"_ Desmond hissed. 

Sudden anger shot through him, not at her but at himself, for not waiting, for not stopping to think that while _he_ had been climbing buildings and sprinting across rooftops, Rebecca did not have nearly the same experience with free-running.

He darted down the steep tunnel. His heels slid across smoother patches of ground. A small cascade of stones skittered down with him. Rebecca was getting up just as he reached her, stumbling a little, one hand going to her left shoulder.

"Fuck," Desmond said again, helplessly. 

Rebecca rolled her shoulder. With a wince, she pressed down on the soreness. Desmond realized he was holding out his hands, hovering, and made himself lower them. Rebecca was still looking at him, assessing, and she seemed _worried_ , of all things.

Whatever she saw on his face, she didn't like it. "No, hey, none of that," she said, waving away his concern. She mustered up a small smile. "I'm fine, I was just careless."

Desmond nodded. He swallowed down the _'Are you sure?'_ , and also the _'I'm sorry,'_ because they were both useless now. 

It felt like his very skin crawled at the thought of going back down to the cave. But if Rebecca's shoulder needed medical attention, he would go with her. He cleared his throat. "Do you—"

Rebecca threw a glance down the tunnel, down at the blueish glow that emerged from the cave. With a scrape of sand beneath her shoes, her stance broadened, like she was putting herself between Desmond and the glow. 

"No," she said, quite simply. Her mouth was tight, her eyes sparking in the dark. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Desmond managed not to move away when she reached for his hand. Her fingers circled his wrist, but only for long enough to tug him after her, up a few of the stone steps. When she was confident that he was following, Rebecca let him go.

He focused his eyes on the glow stick she'd clipped to her belt, the way it swung back and forth. He darted silently after her as she jogged and leaped up the slope. His heart still hammered unevenly. The soreness in his jaw was swelling up, with a tight, stinging throb, but he knew it'd be some time until the bruise formed fully. He had learned long ago that he didn't bruise easily.

The glow stick cast strange shadows onto the walls. Its light was pale and jagged against the rock, spinning dizzily with Rebecca's movements. They stopped when they reached the top of the tunnel. The stone gate was closed, though it pulsed with a soft golden light that seemed to flow along the symmetrical carvings, not unlike water.

Rebecca lowered herself to sit on the rocky ledge. She checked for wetness with careful fingers—she needn't have bothered, the whole cave was curiously dry and airy, Desmond didn't think he'd seen a single drop of water running down the walls in the few days they'd stayed there. 

He watched her carefully, but she only winced a little as she settled her elbow in her lap. Their gazes met. She patted the ground next to her, with such an imperious gesture that Desmond automatically sat.

The floor was cold. Gravel dug into the backs of his thighs. Desmond rolled his shoulders, trying in vain to arch away the knotted tension. It felt like sitting down had pushed his lungs too far up, and now he couldn't breathe properly, with the hot, gnarled lump of rage in the way.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Rebecca lean over. Then her hand was suddenly blurry and close in his field of vision. Desmond flinched away so hard he almost fell off the ledge.

They both froze. "Sorry," Rebecca said. She almost looked more startled than he felt.

It was just Rebecca, and it was ridiculous, the way his pulse hammered in his ears. Desmond set his jaw. He shook his head, tried to smile, apologetic, like he hadn't just been close to jumping up and putting her into a headlock. 

It was just _Rebecca_. This time, when she reached tentatively for his face, he forced his body into stillness.

A couple of fingers around his chin, and nothing more. Desmond exhaled. Rebecca tilted his head into the light of her glow stick. Her thumb crept up his cheek to carefully prod at his jaw, and she hissed a little in sympathy when she felt the clogging heat of the bruise, just rising to the surface.

"It's fine," Desmond said. His voice was too loud, scratchy and uneven. A surge of restless discomfort went through him, almost a shiver. "I've had worse."

For a moment he cringed, nearly jerked his face out of her grasp. Why had he _said_ that? But Rebecca just said, "Yeah," a bit unsteadily, trying to figure out why that innocuous comment knocked her off-kilter.

There was a pause. Rebecca's touch trailed away. This was that moment, Desmond thought bitterly, when the silence stretched and the gears in Rebecca's quick mind clicked into place and she realized what he'd meant. He peered down the tunnel. Perhaps it wasn't yet too late to go back.

At last, Rebecca cleared her throat. She said, "Just because you've had worse, doesn't mean this doesn't matter."

The words were stilted and uncomfortable, dragged out into the awkward silence, like Rebecca had just wanted to say _something_. A sharp retort sat on the tip of Desmond's tongue—what goddamn useless fortune cookie had she got that from?—but he bit it back. 

It wasn't her fault. She was just trying to be kind. To tiptoe, which couldn't have been coming naturally to her, and the least Desmond could do was not snap at her for it.

The tunnel was dark except for their cloud of light, cast by the glow stick. Sand crunched beneath Desmond's shoes as he shifted restlessly. He didn't want to go back, but he did not particularly want to sit here in silence either.

Several times, Rebecca drew in a breath as if to speak, but never did. She seemed to sense his disquiet. Finally she leaned into his space again, and though Desmond didn't look at her, he could feel her reaching out.

Above his wrist, her hand hovered, an aura of warmth. Their skin brushed. Rebecca's fingers barely touched the hairs on his bare forearm. When he didn't pull away, she let out a slow breath, and settled her palm there for good, around the fine bones of his wrist.

Harsh, cutting words pushed up into his throat like bile. He had to check the urge to shake off her touch. There was no logical reason to bristle, but he did not want to be— _comforted,_ or whatever Rebecca thought she was doing. 

But she wasn't patting his hand, or awkwardly dishing out useless platitudes. She just held his wrist. She didn't even really look at him—when Desmond glanced over, she was fastening her glow stick more securely to her hip with her free hand. The light cast strange shadows over her downturned face.

Desmond exhaled slowly. He looked down at the mouth of the steep tunnel. If he strained his eyes, he could see a hint of the cave's eerie blue light there, a haze against the rough-hewn walls. He wondered what Shaun and his father were doing.

He'd seen Shaun's sharp, hard look when he'd pushed himself between them; he was probably still rattled by the unexpected explosion of violence. Desmond imagined a ringing silence, punctured by occasional watchful looks from Shaun over the clatter of his keyboard.

His father was probably reviewing the tapes or clicking through emails from the team leaders, oblivious to the lingering tension in the air. Desmond could almost see the calm unconcern, his relaxed posture in his crisp suit. William Miles would be just going about his business as usual, as if nothing had happened.

And there was his heart, racing again. It surged higher with each thud. Desmond swallowed, struggled to breathe through the hard, fast throb of his pulse.

Here he was, sitting in a cave at the ass end of nowhere, and his jaw hurt because his father had punched him in the face, and it was like nothing had changed. He was older, taller. Stronger, certainly. But he was still the one sitting in the dark with a tremor deep in his bones and his heart hammering away in his throat.

It was almost like he was sixteen again, bruised and angry, sitting in the cab of the nameless chain-smoking truck driver who'd been the only one to pick up a scrawny, rain-drenched hitchhiker just outside Rapid City.

Rebecca's hand on his arm was moving. Through the rush of blood in his ears, it took Desmond a moment to notice. 

Her fingertips rasped lightly over the hair on his arm. She spread her fingers this way and that. It felt like she was trying to be unobtrusive about it. Desmond forced himself to look at her, and saw that she was peering down at the tattoo.

Desmond blinked at her, honestly thrown. Rebecca was somewhat more physically affectionate than any of them, and he had seen her sneak glances at his tattoo once or twice before, so this wasn't entirely unexpected. But Rebecca's curious eyes were almost like a physical touch, skirting the edge of discomfort, dragging invisible friction across his skin.

He reached out with his free hand. Rebecca stilled instantly, waiting for her touch to be batted away. But Desmond just obliged her by pushing his sleeve up over his elbow, exposing the rest of the curling black design.

Rebecca slid her palm down to cover the uninked back of his hand. They both looked at the tattoo, now exposed fully, the curving bands of black and crossing, calligraphy-like loops.

"I got it done first thing when I ran," Desmond said. He wasn't sure where the words even came from, so what did it matter if his voice scratched in his throat? "Went into the first dingy tat shop I could find, picked something random from the catalog. I knew it'd have driven him up the wall if he'd known. But it didn't matter, right, I'd gotten out, I was far away." He paused. "Probably stupid, in hindsight."

"No," Rebecca said. She slid her hand back up, until she could wrap the span of her fingers just above where the tattoo ended, around the thick muscles in his forearm. 

When he looked at her, she was smiling, just a hesitant upwards twitch of the side of her mouth. "It's pretty cool, actually. Very… teenage rebellion."

She'd said it a little hesitantly. Desmond snorted anyway, not quite a laugh but close. Their voices echoed oddly off the tunnel walls, mingling and fading together, until it almost sounded like they'd spoken more than they actually had.

Coldness from the stone seeped through the seat of Desmond's jeans. His jaw felt stiff and hot with the swelling that was coming up. Blood clots were collecting under the skin. The bruise would last for days. But some of that squirming, heart-hammering restlessness drained away, as though rinsed off by the silence.

Rebecca's fingers moved. She was tracing the black swirls and spikes, following the black design around to the sensitive inside of his wrist. The light cross-hatch of her fingernails traveled across his deeply tanned forearm.

The tattoo had started out as a badge of honor, a bitter triumph in the soreness of the abused skin as it'd healed. Something private, just for him. Then, with enough months at the bar between himself and the Farm, the sharp edges sanded off by time, it had become an accessory, just another thing about him, like his short, wiry hair or the width of his shoulders.

Rebecca's fascination was perhaps a little odd. He certainly couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid attention to his tattoo, of all things. There'd only ever been a few random partners who'd seemed intent on figuring out whether the inked skin tasted any different, a lifetime ago in his tiny apartment just down the street from the bar.

But the light touch was soothing, in a way. Rebecca's fingertips tickled on the fine bones of his wrist. He didn't ask her to stop.

"You've got one up on me, actually," Rebecca said, eventually. "I've always wanted to get one myself."

Desmond blinked at her downturned face. "You mean you don't have any tattoos?"

Rebecca grinned, amused. Desmond could see the glint in her eyes even in the near-dark. She nudged his shoulder. "Surprised?"

"Yeah." Desmond shrugged. He shot her an apologetic look—he'd caught himself buying into a stereotype. "I just thought, you're such an adrenaline junkie, with the skydiving and all—I thought you'd have, I dunno, a skull across your back or something, hey, shut up—"

Rebecca let out her stifled giggles at that, in a bark of laughter that echoed through the cavernous tunnel. They were sitting so close that Desmond could feel the laughter shaking her body. 

"No, no way," Rebecca said, her voice spluttering with residual mirth. Then she sobered, and met his gaze, a bit sheepish. "Freefall at 13,000 feet is nothing. Tiny needles beneath your skin? Get out, you're way more metal than I am."

Oddly flattered, Desmond smiled back. "Tell you what," he offered, "when this is all over, I'll take you to a tattoo parlor. I'll hold your hand and everything. Then you can cross that off your bucket list."

Rebecca stared at him, astonished and grinning. "Yeah!" she said loudly, and nudged his shoulder again, rocking them both. Her weight was a warm, sudden press against him, then she pulled him back by the wrist, her grip tight in her excitement. "We'll totally get a matching one—"

Desmond huffed out a laugh. "'We Saved the World,' or something—"

"We'll get Shaun in on it, too," Exposed by her wide smile, Rebecca's teeth reflected the light from the glow stick, a row of white in the dark. "We're gonna have to bribe him though, he'd never get a tattoo on his own…"

"We'll think of something," Desmond promised. Somehow it warmed him, the thought of the three of them bearing the same mark, made immortal on each other's skin.

On the heels of that thought, the phantom pain of Lucy dragged itself through his head. There should've been four of them. Four to go into the tattoo parlor, four to come out again with identical marks—

But here in the tunnel, with Rebecca's thigh pressed solidly against his own, her laughter close against his side, the thought only brought a fleeting, plummeting ache. It did not cleave him open the way it did late at night.

Into the quiet, Rebecca said, "Alright, it's a date," and though they'd been laughing, she sounded half-serious now, warm with anticipation and affection.

Smiling hurt his cheek and jaw, and it was probably more lopsided than normal. At some point, Rebecca's presence had turned from a prickle bordering on discomfort, to a steady warmth.

He had no idea how long they'd been sitting there. It must've been mere minutes, but it felt like longer. It was hard to tell the passage of time with no daylight and no watch. Well, Rebecca had one, but Desmond didn't really want to know what time it was.

It wasn't important anyway. He doubted they'd get anything done for the rest of the day. Just the thought of going back down and facing his father— 

The thought knocked him off-kilter again. He breathed deeply, just once, and the constricted feeling in his chest drained halfway out with his next exhale. Rebecca was sitting so close that they were almost sharing breaths. It was like her presence was a shield.

Rebecca's hand was still on his arm. And Desmond felt no compulsive need to disentangle himself and laugh off the quietude.

When Rebecca finally removed her touch, it was slow, trailing her palm over his knuckles in an absent-minded way, like she didn't really want to let go. For just a moment, Desmond had to fight the impulse to catch her fingers with his. 

"Well," she said, on a deep breath. She seemed to rouse herself from some sort of dream. "How 'bout we go back down there, see if we can find something to eat? And some ice for your cheek?"

Desmond had to clear his throat. "Yeah, sure," he said. His voice sounded too loud, again, echoing off the walls. "And it's really not…"

"Shut up," Rebecca said. She stood up and stretched, arched her back and brought her linked hands up above her head. She winced only a little at the strain on her shoulder. "I'm the medic of this team, and I say it really was."

And there was the crawling discomfort, coming back up like bile. For once, Desmond had no use for it, for the defensive snapping tone he could already almost hear in his voice though he hadn't replied yet. 

He didn't want to lose the closeness and the warmth he felt. Rebecca hadn't meant it like that, anyway. She would insist on putting some ointment on his cheek, but she wouldn't humiliate him any further by throwing a huge fuss about it. She had already sat in near-silence with him for so long, with none of the prying questions Desmond had expected.

"Oh yeah?" Desmond said, trying for levity, and was relieved when the words came out mostly steady. He stood too, folded his arms across his chest. "I'd like to see your qualifications then, because stuffing someone into an experimental mind-scrambling machine for hours on end can't be medically sound."

Rebecca threw him a glare of mock outrage. "Hey, no dissing my brain-child, okay?" she ordered, pointing a finger at him. "This is your first warning."

Desmond found himself grinning. It felt strange on his face, just a second after the brief chill of unease. He held his hands up in supplication. "Alright, got it. Your precious Baby is off-limits." 

Before his mind could fully catch up, he had grasped her outstretched hand. He folded the accusing finger back towards her palm and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

Rebecca blinked. Her eyes gleamed in the dark. 

For a moment Desmond couldn't read her gaze at all, that sudden awareness. She didn't look surprised. The warm squeeze of Desmond's hand around hers hadn't come unexpected. It was more like something she had waited for had stolen in before its time.  
Rebecca's hand turned over in his grip. Before Desmond could awkwardly pull away, she gave his palm a squeeze, damp and slightly gritty from the dust that clung to them after their trek up the tunnel.

"You'd better remember it," she said. Her voice was light, unconcerned. After a moment, she let go of his hand, and began picking her way down the slope.

Desmond stared after her. Rebecca's gait looked even and sure. She jumped down a few of the craggier stone steps, then took the next few as though they were normal stairs, her arms half-raised for balance. 

He moved to follow. This time neither of them fell. Dry, slightly warm air flowed over them as they came closer to the cave again. Rebecca paused to let him catch up, threw a grin over her shoulder as they leaped across a crevasse in the rock together. 

The glow stick threw reflections of light on the tunnel walls. Shadows bobbed and skewed crazily as the stick bounced against Rebecca's thigh. Behind them, their seat at the top of the tunnel lay undisturbed save for a fine layer of kicked-up dust. Only once, Desmond glanced back, until the stairs were swallowed up by powdery darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> There was no room in that cutscene for this part to happen, but I wrestled it in there because frankly, I really _wanted_ it to happen. I realize they were on a tight schedule, but come on, Desmond didn't get 2 seconds to catch his breath after his father punched him in the face? And then there was all this other dialogue between William  & Desmond that really set off some warning bells in my head. I kinda hope I'm not the only one who freaked out about that & drew some conclusions about Desmond's childhood.
> 
> I thought about placing this note at the top. In the beginning notes, though, it felt like I was trying to defend myself in advance in case anyone took issue with my interpretation. Down here it's... still defensive, but I feel better about it. xD 
> 
> Fun fact: I wrote this story almost exactly 2 years ago when I was playing AC3. I'd planned to make it just a short scene amidst a multi-chapter OT3 fic about the modern Assassins I was planning at the time--that didn't work out, so for a while this snippet just sat abandoned. Then I started going through my gigantic pile of WIPs & put this one into the 'salvageable with a bit of effort' column. I'm glad to have finally posted it. It's a bit of a weight off my shoulders.
> 
> I am also on [tumblr](http://derryday.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to drop by. <3


End file.
